000 Allen FMT (i-xxii) - The Presbyterian Leader

Eighth Sunday after the Epiphany/Year A 25
can afford. Verse 16 forbids slander, which obviously destroys community.
Slander, the rabbis said, kills three persons: the slanderer, the person who
believes the slander, and the person who is slandered.
Verse 16 adds: “you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor.”
This is also translated as: do not stand idle when your fellow human being
is in danger. 7 If we can help someone who is in trouble and fail to do so,
according to Torah we have committed a serious crime. We are obligated
to help, but not to the extent of losing our own lives.
Verse 17: “you shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin.” Verse
18: “you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people.”
“Kin” refers to all those of one’s “kind.” Our awareness of kindness
derives from this origin. That we are to love the stranger as we love ourselves
shows that this mitzvah does not place a limit on our responsibility.
“Reprove your neighbor” means that disagreements are to be worked out
person-to-person, in community, so that we do not bear grudges against
one another.
Verse 18: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” quoted by Jesus as
part of the greatest commandment (Matt. 22:34–40), should be paired
with Leviticus 19:33–34: “you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were
aliens in the land of Israel.” The commandment to love the stranger is
repeated thirty-six times in the Scriptures of Israel. To the extent that repetition
is significant, it is the most important commandment in the Torah.
Love the neighbor and the stranger!
Eighth Sunday after the Epiphany/Year A
Isaiah 49:8–16a
Today’s reading immediately follows Isaiah 49:1–7, discussed on the Second
Sunday after the Epiphany/Year A. There the servant of YHWH was
given the dual task to be “a light to the nations” (49:6) and “to bring Jacob
back to” Judea and Jerusalem. Verses 8–13 continue to stress the return of
the exiles to Judea, while verses 9–16a speak to the continued weeping of
the exiles over their predicament in Babylon.
The Lord reiterates the point that the people’s “salvation” is at hand:
“In a time of favor I have answered you, on a day of salvation I have helped
you” (v. 8). The occasion of Israel’s exile is now in the past, a point that
bears repeating to a community that laments its situation. Isaiah had proclaimed
that the people had served its term, that its penalty was paid
(40:2). But they had not taken this to heart. The facts of their weakness